I've only barely skimmed the surface of the preservation world, but the irreverent attitude taken by the industry towards audiovisual media releases frustrates me greatly. That more accurate older releases are made unobtainable in favor of newer botched versions just adds insult to injury.
I'm grateful that diminishing returns were hit earlier with audio, though, which limits the blast radius for music releases. Most classic albums have a range of different masterings available on audio CD, many of which are available cheaply secondhand, which makes getting ahold of a good/accurate release considerably less daunting.
Movies and especially TV shows on the other hand are a mess. It shouldn't be a miracle to get a high-quality, faithful official remaster like the one Star Trek: TNG got.
> It shouldn't be a miracle to get a high-quality, faithful official remaster like the one Star Trek: TNG got.
Unlike movies, TV shows (and this includes TNG) have an additional problem that they were often only mastered in SD with a lot of the digital effects never rendered in higher resolution. Even for scenes show entirely on film, there was no reason to re-take shots that are out of focus but still good enough for SD. That does make TNG-like restorations not just a matter of attitudes towards preservation from the rights holders but an inherently difficult project.
cosmic_cheese · · focus · HN ↗
I'm grateful that diminishing returns were hit earlier with audio, though, which limits the blast radius for music releases. Most classic albums have a range of different masterings available on audio CD, many of which are available cheaply secondhand, which makes getting ahold of a good/accurate release considerably less daunting.
Movies and especially TV shows on the other hand are a mess. It shouldn't be a miracle to get a high-quality, faithful official remaster like the one Star Trek: TNG got.
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
Unlike movies, TV shows (and this includes TNG) have an additional problem that they were often only mastered in SD with a lot of the digital effects never rendered in higher resolution. Even for scenes show entirely on film, there was no reason to re-take shots that are out of focus but still good enough for SD. That does make TNG-like restorations not just a matter of attitudes towards preservation from the rights holders but an inherently difficult project.